UPDATE: Marble Falls boil water notice lifted
UPDATE, 9:20 A.M. FRIDAY, JULY 18: The city of Marble Falls has lifted its boil water notice. The city announced the lifting of the notice at 9 a.m. Friday on its website.
PREVIOUS STORY: Marble Falls was put under a boil water notice on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 15, amid issues with water treatment in the city following days of heavy rains and flooding on the Colorado River.
The notice was still in effect as of Wednesday morning and could remain so until Thursday or Friday, according to city officials.
“I think what will happen is we will test in a day or two and we’ll be able to (end the boil water notice),” Marble Falls City Manager Mike Hodge said at a City Council meeting Tuesday night. “It’s taken us, in the past, anywhere from 48 to 72 hours.”
An alert sent out by the city on Tuesday afternoon said the water treatment plant had failed to meet Texas Commission on Environmental Quality standards for appropriate turbidity levels, leading to a mandatory boil water notice.
Turbidity refers to the clarity of water and how much material is suspended in it. While turbidity on its own is not always an indicator of danger, it can mean that filtration is not happening properly within the treatment system, which might allow harmful bacteria, viruses, or parasites to pass through.
The high turbidity of the Marble Falls water has been attributed to the debris, mud, and material churning in Lake Marble Falls due to flooding and rain that began over the Fourth of July weekend.
“(The water in Lake Marble Falls) is like chocolate milk, and the fact that we can turn that into clear drinking water is phenomenal. But we can’t continue to do that day in and day out for weeks at a time,” Hodge explained.
Marble Falls residents using city water are cautioned to thoroughly boil it before consumption, including drinking, cooking, and ice making, until the notice is lifted.
Call the city with questions at 830-798-6260.
The city of Meadowlakes, which also gets its water from Lake Marble Falls, is not under a boil water notice and has safe turbidity levels. This could be due to the city’s raw-water intake being beneath the lakebed, meaning it is filtered through sand and gravel before it reaches the intake itself.